The Future of RCS and iMessage: A Comparative Analysis

In recent times, there has been a significant buzz around the potential implementation of the Rich Communication Suite (RCS) on iPhone devices. RCS is an international standard for enhanced messaging services over SMS and MMS protocols. While RCS offers several improvements over traditional SMS, including better support for group chats, high-quality media sharing, and read receipts, it remains to be seen how well RCS will fare on Apple's iPhone platform.

One of the main reasons why RCS is touted as a superior alternative to iMessage is its ability to provide more features and functionality. For instance, RCS allows users to share files of up to 1MB in size, which is significantly larger than the 2MB limit imposed by iMessage. Additionally, RCS supports end-to-end encryption, which ensures that only the sender and receiver can read the contents of a message. Furthermore, RCS provides better support for group chats, allowing users to create groups with up to 256 participants.

However, when it comes to actual implementation on iPhone devices, there are some limitations. For one, iMessage is deeply integrated into Apple's operating system, making it difficult to replicate its features and functionality without significant effort. Additionally, Apple's focus on security has led to the development of a proprietary messaging protocol, which may make it challenging for RCS to compete with iMessage.

Despite these challenges, RCS remains an attractive option for those who value advanced messaging features and better support for file sharing and group chats. As Apple continues to develop its iPhone platform, it is likely that we will see more RCS-like features integrated into the operating system. However, as of now, iPhone users are still relying on iMessage for their messaging needs.

In a related development, Apple has announced an extension of its free period for emergency SOS via satellite services on iPhone 14 devices. Originally set to expire after two years, the free service will now be available for an additional year, providing iPhone 14 users with extended access to this critical feature. However, it appears that iPhone 15 customers have not received a similar extension, sparking speculation about potential changes in Apple's policy.

On a lighter note, a recent incident involving an AirTag has sparked widespread attention and concern among construction workers in Minneapolis. An 8,000-pound skid steer construction vehicle was stolen from the middle of a demolition site using an AirTag, leaving the owner and authorities baffled. While police are still investigating the heist, it remains unclear whether the thieves were able to track down the stolen machine using the AirTag's location data.

The incident highlights the growing concerns around AirTags and their potential for misuse. As Apple continues to develop its tracking technology, it is essential to address these concerns and ensure that users can trust their devices to keep sensitive information private. In the meantime, construction companies and individuals working with valuable equipment are advised to use multiple AirTags strategically placed in critical areas to prevent theft.

In conclusion, while RCS remains a promising alternative to iMessage, its implementation on iPhone devices is still uncertain. Apple's focus on security and proprietary messaging protocols may hinder its adoption. However, as the technology continues to evolve, we can expect more features and functionality to be integrated into the operating system. In the meantime, users will continue to rely on their existing messaging services for their daily communication needs.

The recent AirTag incident serves as a stark reminder of the importance of taking necessary precautions when using tracking devices. As Apple continues to develop its tracking technology, it is crucial that users take steps to protect themselves and their valuables. By using multiple AirTags strategically placed in critical areas, individuals can reduce the risk of theft and ensure their safety.

In the world of Apple, innovation is always on the horizon, and new technologies are emerging all the time. Whether it's RCS or tracking devices like AirTags, there is no denying that these advancements have the potential to transform the way we communicate and interact with our surroundings. As we move forward into an increasingly connected world, one thing is certain – Apple will continue to play a leading role in shaping the future of technology.

Brand New Wallpapers from Brandon.com

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enwhat's up guys my name is Brandon and welcome back to Apple weekly this week we have an extra- large episode for you so we're going to talk about even more iOS 17.2 beta features and changes we're going to talk about why text messages on the iPhone will never be the same iOS 18 and why it might be an update for the ages side loading is not going to be what you think another crazy air tag story and more and as always if you want to stay updated with all things going on in the world of Apple be sure to hit that subscribe button down below so you don't miss next week's episode and also make sure to go to the apple den.com and sign up for the free newsletter if you want to get all of the latest Apple news delivered straight to your inbox completely free all right so let's start with even more iOS 17.2 features and changes we are currently on the third beta the final public release is not coming until December so right now we are on the third beta and the first thing I want to discuss is a change inside of our settings if we head into Safari if we go down to the clear history and website data tab you will see that we have the clear time frame and also the clear for profile right here now that is not new however what is new is that your settings stick for the next time so before this would reset after every time you did it but now they stick and you will see that right when I went in here today was checked off so if I change this to today and yesterday and I go to Leisure for example and I go to clear history the next time I go into that you can see that today and yesterday is checked off so it remembers What You Did Last and keeps that Ed also I wanted to mention that in 17.2 this whole section is very laggy like take a look at when I go out of here it kind of is like not taking up the full resolution of the screen and same with when I go in there you can see it's kind of choppy so I would imagine that will be fixed by the time 17.2 launches because that is you know looks really bad it doesn't even look like iOS so maybe I'll report that in the feedback application and then we also have another minor change in the settings if you go into the phone or the FaceTime settings so we're going to go into phone and you'll see right here we have share name and photo so this is not a new setting by any means but it's a new section inside of the phone and the FaceTime setting so if you go into here this is going to be where you can change your contact poster if you want to share that with everybody or just with contacts and then if we go into the FaceTime section right here you can see we have the same thing except you have to swipe down a little bit and it's below the color ID and it says share name and photo and then of course I covered all the other changes in my what's new video but I did also want to talk about the issue that's going on right now with wireless charging so if you guys remember last week we talked about how Apple released 17.11 and one of the bugs that that update fixed was wireless charging in BMW cars so there's a big issue with when you would wirelessly charge and a BMW would kind of mess up your iPhone 15 and it looks like a similar issue is going on right now with GM cars and wireless charging is broken for iPhone 15 models now keep in mind this issue is not near a s as the BMW issue because that would cause issues with the NFC chip where you couldn't use Apple pay and things like that this issue is just simply not allowing you to wirelessly charge your iPhone 15 so I highly doubt that Apple's going to push out an update just to fix an issue like this they'll probably just fix this with 17.2 now I do also want to talk about watch 10.2 beta 3 this is the latest watch beta and this brings back a feature that many people were very disappointed was removed in watch 10 and that is the swiping over to change the watch face so that is now back before on watch us you canot you know swipe over to change to your next watch face and go back to the previous one but now you can there is a new setting under settings clock and you can see it is swipe to switch watch face now as far as performance goes I'm really not seeing any difference with beta 3 here from beta 2 so I'm not going to waste your time in talking about this you can see the latest benchmark scores right there nothing crazy now I do want to talk about the battery life because battery life actually has impr improved here on beta 3 not just for me personally but also for a lot of users who have responded to me on you know YouTube comments on the Discord server on my Apple Den newsletter a lot of people are saying that beta 3 has resolved their battery issues and keep in mind people say there's battery issues with every single version ever you know Apple could make a literal you know perfect iOS version and people will still have issues with battery life but nonetheless people are seeing an improvement with battery life in beta 3 so hopefully that means that everybody is seeing that same Improvement if not let me know in a comment down below I'm curious to see how battery life is for you but for me personally I really have no complaints and I'll bring up my main device here as well which I am running 17.2 beta 3 on my main device as well and you can see I mean not a huge difference in terms of battery usage going from beta 2 to Beta 3 but you can see my usage right there okay so before we get into the juicy news of the week let's talk about what to expect next from Apple so next up is going to be 17.2 beta 4 and I am not expecting to see that next week now yes we were technically on a onewe release schedule for last week for the previous beta but next week is the week of Thanksgiving and apple does typically skip that week when it comes to software updates so for that reason I would expect to see the next beta on the week of November 27th most likely right there on November 28th and that will very likely be the final beta before the RC which I would expect to see the following week on the week of December 4th and then we should see the final public release of 17.2 probably right there on December 11th but it really could come any day that week all right so now let's move on to the latest Apple news and let's start with iOS 18 yes we are 7 months away from seeing iOS 18 debut at the worldwide developers Conference in June but we're now getting pretty exciting news honestly about iOS 18 and how it could be a quote groundbreaking update so here's what Mark Gman Bloomberg had to say after a few years of modestly sized updates to iOS the next version of of the iPhone and iPad software could be relatively groundbreaking internally Apple's Senior Management has described its upcoming operating systems as quote ambitious and compelling with major new features and designs in addition to security and performance improvements so that sounds awesome and we really haven't heard Apple's management or really anybody at Apple describe a software update like that before at least not that I can remember and I keep track of all this news so I don't know that that sounds exciting to me and I think this plays you know part of this is because of all the AI that Apple has been working on Apple has been working heavily on AI more specifically generative AI in the background so I would imagine the iOS 18 is going to have a major emphasis on AI so we could see a complete revamp of Siri maybe a you know app to go along with Siri I'm not really sure how Apple's going to do this and we've also heard that some of these features might be exclusive to the iPhone 16 so we'll have to kind of you know see how this is going to go but I think AI is going to be a ma major major part of iOS 18 however let's remember last week Apple did pause iOS 18 development for a full week which indicates that Apple is very serious about making you know this next major release as stable as possible and a lot of people have been wondering you know is this delay in development of iOS 18 because Apple wants to focus on these bugs does that mean we're not going to get a final shipped version until later like later than September like we normally do and that appears to not be the case according to German he said that the delay probably won't noticeably postpone the ultimate release of the software and he said that the worst case scenario is that Apple will have quote a little less time at the end of the development cycle to eliminate any last minute glitches so that's kind of counterintuitive to what we're hearing about this software being super stable and super reliable if they're not going to have enough time to you know smooth out all these bugs at the end could we not see as stable of a release as we're expecting I don't know iOS 18 is going to be a very interesting software to watch I think more than the past few years just because of all the talk about it and all the hype we're putting into this but let's be real you know at the end of the day there's hype every single year for the iOS software and almost every year A lot of people are let down so we'll just have to to wait and see but I will have to say that I am very excited for iOS 18 and I was not really excited for iOS 16 or 17 so this going to be the first time in a few years where I'm genuinely excited for the next iOS release and we of course cannot talk about iOS 18 and apple in 20 24 without mentioning side loading because a lot of people were getting very excited when we saw code pop up in 17.2 beta I think it was beta 2 and it was kind of implying that we could be seeing side loading as soon as iOS 17.2 however that was quickly dismissed because that appeared to be for organizational use and not for personal use however Mark Gman has some details about what's coming in relation to side loading in 2024 so he's reporting that side loading will be available to EU users in the first half of 2024 however that is not going to carry over to the US or other countries unfortunately and the reason being is because Apple only has to comply to the EU law the EU regulations and that doesn't apply here in the US now of course side loing if you're not sure what side loading is side loading gives customers the ability to download applications without having to use the app store which means that developers are going to make a lot more money because they don't have to pay Apple's 15 to sometimes 30% tax so if you were getting your hopes up for side loading and you don't live in the EU this is pretty bad news because it looks like we're not going to be getting side loading at least for the time being in any other country besides the EU so you guys know how Apple has been working on their own in-house 5G modem for many years now they've been working on this for a while and it appears that they hit another snag and we're going to have another delay for this modem according to Bloomberg apple is going to miss an extended spring 2025 launch timeline so the modem chip launch is now expected around the end of 2025 or early 2026 and apple is still planning to introduce the technology in a version of the new lowcost iPhone SE and if you remember the first time we talked about Apple's inhouse 5G modem it was supposed to be for the iPhone se4 which was supposed to come out I believe at the beginning of 2023 or maybe even the end of 2022 and that's been delayed so many times and it looks like we're still potentially going to see this modem debut on an iPhone SE so that could mean we might not even see an iPhone se4 in 2024 if this is the case so we'll have to wait and see how this plays out but Apple's 5G modem when they can build that inhouse that is going to be a massive deal a huge deal not just for their profit margins but also for us in terms of connectivity and you know 5G and all that it's going to you know in theory improve greatly okay so now we have to discuss the biggest news story of the week and something that I think was pretty much the unthinkable for apple and that is the fact that we now have confirmation that Apple will be adding RCS support to iOS and the iPhone next year so RCS stands for Rich communication services and this is a communication protocol that Google created back in 2007 to replace the SMS and MMS standard from 2002 so that of course is the standard that Apple still uses to this day and that's what leads to the 160 character limit when you send a message to an Android User when you're not using iMessage basically you know you have the character limit you have the major limitations and compression when it comes to photos and especially with videos you'll notice that if you send a video from an iPhone to an Android the quality is downright terrible because only so much data can be pass through via MMS but all of that and more is going to be changing next year so an apple spokesman told 95 Mac later next year we will be adding support for RCS Universal profile the standard as currently published by the GS Association and they go on to say that this is going to work alongside iMessage which will continue to be the best and most secure messaging experience for Apple users okay so let's break this down how does RCS benefit us well first off if you're sending an iMessage a message from an iPhone user to another iPhone user or just you know if they're on a Mac or whatever the blue bubbles if you're sending blue bubbles all the time this means nothing to you this is not going to change anything at all for you this is only going to change the whole experience when you have green bubbles that's the simplest way I can put this so there's some pretty major advantages here with RCS number one is that your pictures and especially your videos are not going to be compressed to death and it's not going to look like you shot that video on a potato you're going to see pretty much the full quality now when you send a video to an Android User or in a group chat with an Android user and again you're not going to have the 160 character limits but you're also going to get typing indicators and red receipts so just like you get on iMessage now when you text somebody on an Android we're going to have real red receipts and also real typing indicators and we've already had the tapback actions but I would I would assume that those are going to get better as well when you do like the haha or the love or whatever that's probably going to improve as well and another big advantage of having RCS support is the fact that you can send messages over Wi-Fi you do not need a cell signal like you do to send SMS or MMS messages so it's going to be very similar to iMessage which is great however it's not going to be as secure as iMessage so apple is going to work on this and and help them make this standard more secure so it is important to note that you know this is kind of the big catch with with RCS by the way it's not going to be as secure as iMessage but Apple did say that they're working with you know this whole protocol and trying to make it more secure and better they're not going to put their own proprietary software on top of RCs it's just going to be basic RCS like everybody else has and I wanted to wrap up the story by saying you know why now why is Apple doing this now we've we've been wanting RCS support for the past I mean forever for the past 10 years we've been wanting RCS support if not longer so why is Apple doing this now and I'd say that don't rule out the power of the EU I mean think about it we just got USBC on the iPhone we're getting sideloading for you know at least devices in the EU this could have something to do with the impending legislature with the EU in terms of apple with their gatekeeping you know messaging platform with imessage so that could play a pretty big role here and I don't really like speculating a lot but I think that the EU definitely plays a role in this decision but I think also Apple realizes they're not really going to lose any money from this like I I have seen a lot of people saying oh great I can switch to Android now but the reality is I mean it's still not iMessage it's still not the same it's not going to be the exact same you're not going to have all the iMessage specific features so we'll have to wait and see how this pans out and you know how much better RCS is over SMS and especially compared to iMessage there's just a lot to talk about here but a lot of it is kind of just in theory right now until we can actually see it implemented on the iPhone which again is coming next year presumably in iOS 18 but I do also have to ask you what do you think about RCS coming to the iPhone are you excited for it do you think it's not a big deal let me know your thoughts in the comments below and before we get into the crazy air tag story I did just want to mention that Apple did just announce that they're extending the free period for the iPhone 14 emergency SOS via satellite features so this originally came with two free years of service but now it looks like apple is expanding that to give iPhone 14 users an extra year however it looks like iPhone 15 customers have not seen an extension for this service so it may come after the second year for iPhone 15 users but if you have an iPhone 14 just know that automatically your emergency SOS via satellite subscription if you want to call it has been extended and if you don't have this feature turned on you need to turn this on right away because we've covered so many stories here here on the channel over the years about how many lives this feature has saved and me personally I think that emergency SOS via satellite should be free forever I think it should not have an expiration date I think people should not have to pay for this this saves lives Apple should be including this for free anyways let's move on to the final story of this episode and this of course is going to be another crazy air tag story and this time the stolen item was not something we've ever seen here on the channel and it was an 8,000lb skid steer construction vehicle and they're calling this a heist so a construction company was outworking a typical residential home demolition in Minneapolis when out of nowhere their skid steer disappeared in the middle of their Demolition and keep in mind that this machine cost almost $75,000 and it was the Construction company's only one now the owner of the company said that it did have an air tag inside but it stopped showing its location shortly after after the heist now the man also said that many people in the area over the past couple weeks have had similar experiences where their machines were stolen in the blink of an eye right in front of them now police have still not found the suspects and I don't know if they will because it seems pretty sophisticated and you know you have to be kind of smart you know I don't think criminals are smart whatsoever I'm not saying that but there's a level of sophistication to steal an 8,000lb machine in the middle you know in broad daylight in the middle of a job without somebody knowing and and knowing the air tag how to cut off that air tag so crazy story you know I wish they found the people who did this but again like I always say especially on an expensive 7 $775,000 machine you should have two air tags in there now with these thieves in specific you know they're probably smart enough to know that there's a second air tag in there but your general Thief your general person who's going to be stealing something from you is never going to guess there's going to be two air tags in one item so like I always say hide an air tag real good and then put a regular air tag you know where somebody can find it so it kind of throws them off and they don't look for for another one but anyways guys there you have it that is the latest in the world of Apple I hope you enjoyed this episode if you did I would appreciate if you gave it a thumbs up also be sure to subscribe to the Apple Den newsletter it's a free newsletter that I send out every single week a lot of the stories I cover here in apple weekly I cover a day before that goes out every Friday morning I cover a lot of the same stories and video format here that I cover in that newsletter it's just kind of another way of getting you info in case you miss a video or in case you miss an email so if you'd like to sign up for that that is linked down in the description below of course check out brandon.com if you want want any of your wallpapers any of the wallpapers you see on my phone and things like that so anyways again hope you enjoy this video if you did I would appreciate if you give it a thumbs up and make sure to subscribe so you don't miss next week's episode of Apple weekly and happy early Thanksgiving as well but anyways guys thanks again for watching and I'll see you soonwhat's up guys my name is Brandon and welcome back to Apple weekly this week we have an extra- large episode for you so we're going to talk about even more iOS 17.2 beta features and changes we're going to talk about why text messages on the iPhone will never be the same iOS 18 and why it might be an update for the ages side loading is not going to be what you think another crazy air tag story and more and as always if you want to stay updated with all things going on in the world of Apple be sure to hit that subscribe button down below so you don't miss next week's episode and also make sure to go to the apple den.com and sign up for the free newsletter if you want to get all of the latest Apple news delivered straight to your inbox completely free all right so let's start with even more iOS 17.2 features and changes we are currently on the third beta the final public release is not coming until December so right now we are on the third beta and the first thing I want to discuss is a change inside of our settings if we head into Safari if we go down to the clear history and website data tab you will see that we have the clear time frame and also the clear for profile right here now that is not new however what is new is that your settings stick for the next time so before this would reset after every time you did it but now they stick and you will see that right when I went in here today was checked off so if I change this to today and yesterday and I go to Leisure for example and I go to clear history the next time I go into that you can see that today and yesterday is checked off so it remembers What You Did Last and keeps that Ed also I wanted to mention that in 17.2 this whole section is very laggy like take a look at when I go out of here it kind of is like not taking up the full resolution of the screen and same with when I go in there you can see it's kind of choppy so I would imagine that will be fixed by the time 17.2 launches because that is you know looks really bad it doesn't even look like iOS so maybe I'll report that in the feedback application and then we also have another minor change in the settings if you go into the phone or the FaceTime settings so we're going to go into phone and you'll see right here we have share name and photo so this is not a new setting by any means but it's a new section inside of the phone and the FaceTime setting so if you go into here this is going to be where you can change your contact poster if you want to share that with everybody or just with contacts and then if we go into the FaceTime section right here you can see we have the same thing except you have to swipe down a little bit and it's below the color ID and it says share name and photo and then of course I covered all the other changes in my what's new video but I did also want to talk about the issue that's going on right now with wireless charging so if you guys remember last week we talked about how Apple released 17.11 and one of the bugs that that update fixed was wireless charging in BMW cars so there's a big issue with when you would wirelessly charge and a BMW would kind of mess up your iPhone 15 and it looks like a similar issue is going on right now with GM cars and wireless charging is broken for iPhone 15 models now keep in mind this issue is not near a s as the BMW issue because that would cause issues with the NFC chip where you couldn't use Apple pay and things like that this issue is just simply not allowing you to wirelessly charge your iPhone 15 so I highly doubt that Apple's going to push out an update just to fix an issue like this they'll probably just fix this with 17.2 now I do also want to talk about watch 10.2 beta 3 this is the latest watch beta and this brings back a feature that many people were very disappointed was removed in watch 10 and that is the swiping over to change the watch face so that is now back before on watch us you canot you know swipe over to change to your next watch face and go back to the previous one but now you can there is a new setting under settings clock and you can see it is swipe to switch watch face now as far as performance goes I'm really not seeing any difference with beta 3 here from beta 2 so I'm not going to waste your time in talking about this you can see the latest benchmark scores right there nothing crazy now I do want to talk about the battery life because battery life actually has impr improved here on beta 3 not just for me personally but also for a lot of users who have responded to me on you know YouTube comments on the Discord server on my Apple Den newsletter a lot of people are saying that beta 3 has resolved their battery issues and keep in mind people say there's battery issues with every single version ever you know Apple could make a literal you know perfect iOS version and people will still have issues with battery life but nonetheless people are seeing an improvement with battery life in beta 3 so hopefully that means that everybody is seeing that same Improvement if not let me know in a comment down below I'm curious to see how battery life is for you but for me personally I really have no complaints and I'll bring up my main device here as well which I am running 17.2 beta 3 on my main device as well and you can see I mean not a huge difference in terms of battery usage going from beta 2 to Beta 3 but you can see my usage right there okay so before we get into the juicy news of the week let's talk about what to expect next from Apple so next up is going to be 17.2 beta 4 and I am not expecting to see that next week now yes we were technically on a onewe release schedule for last week for the previous beta but next week is the week of Thanksgiving and apple does typically skip that week when it comes to software updates so for that reason I would expect to see the next beta on the week of November 27th most likely right there on November 28th and that will very likely be the final beta before the RC which I would expect to see the following week on the week of December 4th and then we should see the final public release of 17.2 probably right there on December 11th but it really could come any day that week all right so now let's move on to the latest Apple news and let's start with iOS 18 yes we are 7 months away from seeing iOS 18 debut at the worldwide developers Conference in June but we're now getting pretty exciting news honestly about iOS 18 and how it could be a quote groundbreaking update so here's what Mark Gman Bloomberg had to say after a few years of modestly sized updates to iOS the next version of of the iPhone and iPad software could be relatively groundbreaking internally Apple's Senior Management has described its upcoming operating systems as quote ambitious and compelling with major new features and designs in addition to security and performance improvements so that sounds awesome and we really haven't heard Apple's management or really anybody at Apple describe a software update like that before at least not that I can remember and I keep track of all this news so I don't know that that sounds exciting to me and I think this plays you know part of this is because of all the AI that Apple has been working on Apple has been working heavily on AI more specifically generative AI in the background so I would imagine the iOS 18 is going to have a major emphasis on AI so we could see a complete revamp of Siri maybe a you know app to go along with Siri I'm not really sure how Apple's going to do this and we've also heard that some of these features might be exclusive to the iPhone 16 so we'll have to kind of you know see how this is going to go but I think AI is going to be a ma major major part of iOS 18 however let's remember last week Apple did pause iOS 18 development for a full week which indicates that Apple is very serious about making you know this next major release as stable as possible and a lot of people have been wondering you know is this delay in development of iOS 18 because Apple wants to focus on these bugs does that mean we're not going to get a final shipped version until later like later than September like we normally do and that appears to not be the case according to German he said that the delay probably won't noticeably postpone the ultimate release of the software and he said that the worst case scenario is that Apple will have quote a little less time at the end of the development cycle to eliminate any last minute glitches so that's kind of counterintuitive to what we're hearing about this software being super stable and super reliable if they're not going to have enough time to you know smooth out all these bugs at the end could we not see as stable of a release as we're expecting I don't know iOS 18 is going to be a very interesting software to watch I think more than the past few years just because of all the talk about it and all the hype we're putting into this but let's be real you know at the end of the day there's hype every single year for the iOS software and almost every year A lot of people are let down so we'll just have to to wait and see but I will have to say that I am very excited for iOS 18 and I was not really excited for iOS 16 or 17 so this going to be the first time in a few years where I'm genuinely excited for the next iOS release and we of course cannot talk about iOS 18 and apple in 20 24 without mentioning side loading because a lot of people were getting very excited when we saw code pop up in 17.2 beta I think it was beta 2 and it was kind of implying that we could be seeing side loading as soon as iOS 17.2 however that was quickly dismissed because that appeared to be for organizational use and not for personal use however Mark Gman has some details about what's coming in relation to side loading in 2024 so he's reporting that side loading will be available to EU users in the first half of 2024 however that is not going to carry over to the US or other countries unfortunately and the reason being is because Apple only has to comply to the EU law the EU regulations and that doesn't apply here in the US now of course side loing if you're not sure what side loading is side loading gives customers the ability to download applications without having to use the app store which means that developers are going to make a lot more money because they don't have to pay Apple's 15 to sometimes 30% tax so if you were getting your hopes up for side loading and you don't live in the EU this is pretty bad news because it looks like we're not going to be getting side loading at least for the time being in any other country besides the EU so you guys know how Apple has been working on their own in-house 5G modem for many years now they've been working on this for a while and it appears that they hit another snag and we're going to have another delay for this modem according to Bloomberg apple is going to miss an extended spring 2025 launch timeline so the modem chip launch is now expected around the end of 2025 or early 2026 and apple is still planning to introduce the technology in a version of the new lowcost iPhone SE and if you remember the first time we talked about Apple's inhouse 5G modem it was supposed to be for the iPhone se4 which was supposed to come out I believe at the beginning of 2023 or maybe even the end of 2022 and that's been delayed so many times and it looks like we're still potentially going to see this modem debut on an iPhone SE so that could mean we might not even see an iPhone se4 in 2024 if this is the case so we'll have to wait and see how this plays out but Apple's 5G modem when they can build that inhouse that is going to be a massive deal a huge deal not just for their profit margins but also for us in terms of connectivity and you know 5G and all that it's going to you know in theory improve greatly okay so now we have to discuss the biggest news story of the week and something that I think was pretty much the unthinkable for apple and that is the fact that we now have confirmation that Apple will be adding RCS support to iOS and the iPhone next year so RCS stands for Rich communication services and this is a communication protocol that Google created back in 2007 to replace the SMS and MMS standard from 2002 so that of course is the standard that Apple still uses to this day and that's what leads to the 160 character limit when you send a message to an Android User when you're not using iMessage basically you know you have the character limit you have the major limitations and compression when it comes to photos and especially with videos you'll notice that if you send a video from an iPhone to an Android the quality is downright terrible because only so much data can be pass through via MMS but all of that and more is going to be changing next year so an apple spokesman told 95 Mac later next year we will be adding support for RCS Universal profile the standard as currently published by the GS Association and they go on to say that this is going to work alongside iMessage which will continue to be the best and most secure messaging experience for Apple users okay so let's break this down how does RCS benefit us well first off if you're sending an iMessage a message from an iPhone user to another iPhone user or just you know if they're on a Mac or whatever the blue bubbles if you're sending blue bubbles all the time this means nothing to you this is not going to change anything at all for you this is only going to change the whole experience when you have green bubbles that's the simplest way I can put this so there's some pretty major advantages here with RCS number one is that your pictures and especially your videos are not going to be compressed to death and it's not going to look like you shot that video on a potato you're going to see pretty much the full quality now when you send a video to an Android User or in a group chat with an Android user and again you're not going to have the 160 character limits but you're also going to get typing indicators and red receipts so just like you get on iMessage now when you text somebody on an Android we're going to have real red receipts and also real typing indicators and we've already had the tapback actions but I would I would assume that those are going to get better as well when you do like the haha or the love or whatever that's probably going to improve as well and another big advantage of having RCS support is the fact that you can send messages over Wi-Fi you do not need a cell signal like you do to send SMS or MMS messages so it's going to be very similar to iMessage which is great however it's not going to be as secure as iMessage so apple is going to work on this and and help them make this standard more secure so it is important to note that you know this is kind of the big catch with with RCS by the way it's not going to be as secure as iMessage but Apple did say that they're working with you know this whole protocol and trying to make it more secure and better they're not going to put their own proprietary software on top of RCs it's just going to be basic RCS like everybody else has and I wanted to wrap up the story by saying you know why now why is Apple doing this now we've we've been wanting RCS support for the past I mean forever for the past 10 years we've been wanting RCS support if not longer so why is Apple doing this now and I'd say that don't rule out the power of the EU I mean think about it we just got USBC on the iPhone we're getting sideloading for you know at least devices in the EU this could have something to do with the impending legislature with the EU in terms of apple with their gatekeeping you know messaging platform with imessage so that could play a pretty big role here and I don't really like speculating a lot but I think that the EU definitely plays a role in this decision but I think also Apple realizes they're not really going to lose any money from this like I I have seen a lot of people saying oh great I can switch to Android now but the reality is I mean it's still not iMessage it's still not the same it's not going to be the exact same you're not going to have all the iMessage specific features so we'll have to wait and see how this pans out and you know how much better RCS is over SMS and especially compared to iMessage there's just a lot to talk about here but a lot of it is kind of just in theory right now until we can actually see it implemented on the iPhone which again is coming next year presumably in iOS 18 but I do also have to ask you what do you think about RCS coming to the iPhone are you excited for it do you think it's not a big deal let me know your thoughts in the comments below and before we get into the crazy air tag story I did just want to mention that Apple did just announce that they're extending the free period for the iPhone 14 emergency SOS via satellite features so this originally came with two free years of service but now it looks like apple is expanding that to give iPhone 14 users an extra year however it looks like iPhone 15 customers have not seen an extension for this service so it may come after the second year for iPhone 15 users but if you have an iPhone 14 just know that automatically your emergency SOS via satellite subscription if you want to call it has been extended and if you don't have this feature turned on you need to turn this on right away because we've covered so many stories here here on the channel over the years about how many lives this feature has saved and me personally I think that emergency SOS via satellite should be free forever I think it should not have an expiration date I think people should not have to pay for this this saves lives Apple should be including this for free anyways let's move on to the final story of this episode and this of course is going to be another crazy air tag story and this time the stolen item was not something we've ever seen here on the channel and it was an 8,000lb skid steer construction vehicle and they're calling this a heist so a construction company was outworking a typical residential home demolition in Minneapolis when out of nowhere their skid steer disappeared in the middle of their Demolition and keep in mind that this machine cost almost $75,000 and it was the Construction company's only one now the owner of the company said that it did have an air tag inside but it stopped showing its location shortly after after the heist now the man also said that many people in the area over the past couple weeks have had similar experiences where their machines were stolen in the blink of an eye right in front of them now police have still not found the suspects and I don't know if they will because it seems pretty sophisticated and you know you have to be kind of smart you know I don't think criminals are smart whatsoever I'm not saying that but there's a level of sophistication to steal an 8,000lb machine in the middle you know in broad daylight in the middle of a job without somebody knowing and and knowing the air tag how to cut off that air tag so crazy story you know I wish they found the people who did this but again like I always say especially on an expensive 7 $775,000 machine you should have two air tags in there now with these thieves in specific you know they're probably smart enough to know that there's a second air tag in there but your general Thief your general person who's going to be stealing something from you is never going to guess there's going to be two air tags in one item so like I always say hide an air tag real good and then put a regular air tag you know where somebody can find it so it kind of throws them off and they don't look for for another one but anyways guys there you have it that is the latest in the world of Apple I hope you enjoyed this episode if you did I would appreciate if you gave it a thumbs up also be sure to subscribe to the Apple Den newsletter it's a free newsletter that I send out every single week a lot of the stories I cover here in apple weekly I cover a day before that goes out every Friday morning I cover a lot of the same stories and video format here that I cover in that newsletter it's just kind of another way of getting you info in case you miss a video or in case you miss an email so if you'd like to sign up for that that is linked down in the description below of course check out brandon.com if you want want any of your wallpapers any of the wallpapers you see on my phone and things like that so anyways again hope you enjoy this video if you did I would appreciate if you give it a thumbs up and make sure to subscribe so you don't miss next week's episode of Apple weekly and happy early Thanksgiving as well but anyways guys thanks again for watching and I'll see you soon\n"